The Secret Meaning Of The Body Movements Of Sign Language Interpreters

As New York City Mayor Bloomberg gave numerous televised
addresses about the preparations the city was making for
Hurricane Sandy, and then the storm’s aftermath, he was
joined at the podium by a sign language interpreter, who
immediately became a twitter darling.

People watching the addresses tweeted that she was “amazing,”
“mesmerizing,” “hypnotizing,” and “AWESOME.”

Soon, her name was uncovered—Lydia Callis—and animated .gifs of
her signing were posted. A couple of hours later, a tumblr was born.New York magazine called her “Hurricane Sandy’s breakout
star.”

Callis was great, but not because she was so lively and animated.
She was great because she was performing a seriously difficult
mental task—simultaneously listening and translating on the
spot—in a high-pressure, high-stakes situation.

Sure, she was expressive, but that’s because she was speaking a
visual language. Signers are animated not because they are bubbly
and energetic, but because sign language uses face and body
movements as part of its grammar.

In American Sign Language, certain mouth and eye movements serve
as adjectival or adverbial modifiers.

In this example, Bloomberg is explaining that things will get
back to normal little by little. Callis is making the sign
INCREASE, but her tight mouth and squinting eyes modify the verb
to mean “increase in tiny increments.” This facial expression can
attach to various verbs to change their meaning to “a little
bit."

Here, Bloomberg is urging people not to put out their garbage for
collection because it will end up making a mess on the streets.
Callis is making a sign for SPILL, while at the same time making
what is known as the ‘th’ mouth adverbial. This mouth position
modifies the verb to mean “sloppily done.” If you attach it to
WALK, WRITE, or DRIVE, it means “walk sloppily,” “write messily,”
or “drive carelessly.”

Movements of the head and eyebrows indicate sentence-level
syntactic functions.

In this example, Bloomberg is warning people that the worst of
the storm is coming. Callis signs WORST SOON HAPPEN. Her eyebrows
are raised for WORST and SOON, then lowered for HAPPEN. This kind
of eyebrow raise indicates topicalization, a common structure
used by many languages. In topicalization, a component of a
sentence is fronted, and then commented upon. A loose
approximation of her sentence would be “Y’know the worst? Soon?
It’s gonna happen.”

Bloomberg is urging people to use common sense and take the
stairs instead of the elevator. Callis signs NEED GO-UP FLOOR USE
STAIRS. During NEED GO-UP FLOOR her eyes are wide and her
eyebrows raised. Then her eyebrows go down sharply and her eyes
narrow for USE STAIRS. The wide-eyed eyebrow raise marks a
conditional clause. It adds the sense of “if” to the portion it
accompanies. The second clause is a serious command. She signs,
“if you need to go up a floor, use the stairs.”

Body position is used to indicate different discourse-level
structures.

Here Bloomberg is urging people to check on road conditions
before they go anywhere. He says, “The FDR may be open or
closed.” Callis signs OPEN while leaning to the left and CLOSED
while leaning to the right. This shift in body position marks a
contrastive structure. If Bloomberg were to continue making
distinctions between the “open” and “closed” possibilities, she
would use those same positions to maintain coherence while
interpreting those other distinctions.

In this example, Bloomberg is saying that the worst will be over
by tomorrow and that tomorrow when we look back “we’ll certainly
be on the other side of that curve.” Callis signs DECREASE
IMPROVE WEATHER POINT. On the first three signs she looks up and
to her right. She turns back to the front on POINT. Here
her body shift marks the adoption of a role. She is being a
hypothetical person saying “Ahhh, I see things are less intense,
weather improving…” She then drops the role and turns forward to
say (as Bloomberg does), “The point is, stay home.”

Of course, some facial expressions in sign languages are just
facial expressions.

Here, Bloomberg is responding to a reporter’s question a little
testily. Callis captures his bemused, impatient tone with her
facial expression. In fact, Bloomberg captures it with his own
facial expression. No one would call him animated, but he can
also say a few things without words.